on saturday, my sister and anthony and quinn came for a visit. it was quinn's first time traveling, and the little guy did pretty well! saturday night after the kidlets were in bed, the 4 of us sat out back on the patio and had some drinks and talked about parenthood and all that comes with it. we swapped delivery stories (my labor and subsequent vaginal delivery and callie's scheduled c-section, since quinn was breech). and then the boys started talking about the first time they saw their sons. and, you guys, it was the sweetest thing. i'll keep their words to myself, because it was private emotional things that were said in the sanctity of our back porch, but i nearly cried listening to matt talk about those first few moments. i could cry now just thinking about it.
watching matt be a daddy - playing with daxon, trying to make him laugh, feeding him a bottle, giving him a bath - is my greatest joy in life. on saturday night, when we were in bed, i told him as much. i told him how much i love watching him be a daddy. i told him how proud i am of him. i told him how my heart swells at the way daxon looks at him.
we said things that night that we simply hadn't gotten around to saying to each other yet.
in vino veritas...
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Monday, June 24, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
reflux...i think
the week started off great. the weather was beautiful on monday, so daxon and i took a walk. i had a package to mail to my sister (all of his newborn clothing, minus one kimono shirt for me to cry over someday), so i put him in the bugaboo stroller that i got from a friend and off we went. after the post office we stopped in to rite-aid for mommy to get more hemorrhoid cream (note to the pregnant moms, get cream not ointment. trust me). it was lovely.
then we got home. daxon was in a fine mood when we got home, and mommy had to pee, so i put him in the rock and play and went upstairs. while i was in the bathroom he started to cry, but it wasn't his usual, "hey you left me alone, wtf am i supposed to do now" cry. this was a cry. i quickly finished my business, and went back downstairs. as i approached, i noticed his shirt was wet like he'd spit up a little. i've been suspecting he had silent reflux for a few days at this point (more on that in a minute), so while the spit up made me feel bad for him, i wasn't too concerned. but then i noticed the pink spots on his shirt, and panic ensued. my baby had just spit up blood. my initial reaction was to check his mouth and see if he had any sores or had maybe bit his tongue (which is, of course, completely illogical - he couldn't gum his tongue to bleeding!). obviously, i found nothing of the sort. so, after i put him on the boob to call him down, i called the pediatrician.
ok, let me back up now. like i said, i've been suspecting that daxon has silent reflux for a few days. why? the biggest clue for us was the gagging/choking he does after he eats. it could be up to an hour after he eats, and all of sudden he'll just start choking. it lasts only a second or two and then he's fine, and it doesn't seem to really bother him too much, but it's scary as hell. occasionally, he'll be sleeping, then all of a sudden start whimpering and/or crying - almost like he's having a nightmare - but i suspect he's actually refluxing in his sleep and it hurts. occasionally he'll push off me or pull away from the bottle, and when we sit him up to burp, he screams. i thought he was just mad cuz we took the food away, but now i suspect he's mad cuz burping makes the reflux bad. he especially hates being burped over the shoulder, probably because that puts pressure on his little belly. and he hiccups all.the.time. at least 3 times a day. he rarely spits up, though, which is why i've been suspecting that it's silent reflux.
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| i mean...if that's not the saddest face in the world... |
when the pediatrician called me back, i went over all of these symptoms with her. she agreed that it sounded like reflux, and didn't feel it was necessary to bring him in for an appointment urgently, since we are seeing her next week for his 2-month well visit (oh, god, the shots....i'm already dreading it). but she called in a script for zantac. i immediately took to the hellobee boards and dr. google, as well as consulted my friends on facebook. from what i read, zantac - if it works for your baby - works quickly to relieve the painful symptoms of reflux, but won't actually stop the spitting up. fine. he hardly spits up as it is, i just want it to stop hurting him! but i was also warned that for dinner babies, the zantac didn't work, and they required a visit to a pediatric gi specialist. does the word specialist make any other mama's skin crawl?
despite all of the evidence to suggest he has reflux, i'm still not totally convinced. and i'm the one who diagnosed him in the first place. but it seems like it's the worst in the evening. during the day he generally seems comfortable and content. he is always super fussy in the evenings, though. matt gives him a bottle around 6, and once he finishes that, it's fuss city. i wouldn't call him inconsolable, but everything we try only works for a few minutes before he's fussing again. i have two theories on this. my first is that he gets too gassy from the bottle, which aggravates the reflux (have you ever burped when you have heartburn? ouch.). so today we went out and picked up 2 new bottles - an anti-colic tommee tippee (we've been using regular tommee tippee bottles and he takes them well) and a dr. brown. i read reviews online and found that the tommee tippee, while designed with a valve to let air through the milk, is not a true anti-colic bottle. the only true anti-colic bottles are mam and dr. brown. i really didn't want to get the dr. brown, but babies r us doesn't sell mam bottles, so i didn't have a choice. tonight we'll try the tommee tippee and see if that helps, then move on to the dr. brown if not. my other theory is that we're keeping him up too late. i generally start his bedtime routine around 8, about 2 hours after he gets the bottle, and he's typically down by 9. i'm wondering if maybe we should treat the bottle like his bedtime meal, and put him down after he finishes that. i'm hesitant to do this, though, because then matt will hardly get any time with him. and matt is hesitant because he's been sleeping so well so far - why mess with it? i plan to see how it goes with the zantac and the new bottles. if his fussiness doesn't improve, then i will discuss changing his bedtime with the ped on tuesday.
it is torturous watching him cry in pain and not be able to do anything. i hope one of these things, or a combination of any of them, help him and maybe him feel better!
despite all of the evidence to suggest he has reflux, i'm still not totally convinced. and i'm the one who diagnosed him in the first place. but it seems like it's the worst in the evening. during the day he generally seems comfortable and content. he is always super fussy in the evenings, though. matt gives him a bottle around 6, and once he finishes that, it's fuss city. i wouldn't call him inconsolable, but everything we try only works for a few minutes before he's fussing again. i have two theories on this. my first is that he gets too gassy from the bottle, which aggravates the reflux (have you ever burped when you have heartburn? ouch.). so today we went out and picked up 2 new bottles - an anti-colic tommee tippee (we've been using regular tommee tippee bottles and he takes them well) and a dr. brown. i read reviews online and found that the tommee tippee, while designed with a valve to let air through the milk, is not a true anti-colic bottle. the only true anti-colic bottles are mam and dr. brown. i really didn't want to get the dr. brown, but babies r us doesn't sell mam bottles, so i didn't have a choice. tonight we'll try the tommee tippee and see if that helps, then move on to the dr. brown if not. my other theory is that we're keeping him up too late. i generally start his bedtime routine around 8, about 2 hours after he gets the bottle, and he's typically down by 9. i'm wondering if maybe we should treat the bottle like his bedtime meal, and put him down after he finishes that. i'm hesitant to do this, though, because then matt will hardly get any time with him. and matt is hesitant because he's been sleeping so well so far - why mess with it? i plan to see how it goes with the zantac and the new bottles. if his fussiness doesn't improve, then i will discuss changing his bedtime with the ped on tuesday.
it is torturous watching him cry in pain and not be able to do anything. i hope one of these things, or a combination of any of them, help him and maybe him feel better!
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
funny parenting moments
daxon was in a mood tonight. after sleeping most of the day, he was incredibly fussy all evening. he's often fussy in the evening, but this was extreme. we also thought he felt kind of warm. i took his temperature with the forehead scanner, and it was fine - 98.2. but when i took him upstairs to put him down to bed, he was just not himself. and he still felt warm. plus it was really hot in his room. so i changed him out of his sleeper and put him in a short-sleeved onesie, knowing i'd be swaddling him soon. i attempted to nurse him, and he wasn't having it. he screamed his head off, thrashed, and pulled away from me. again, not himself. so i decided to take his temperature with the rectal thermometer. first time ever. yikes. so i opened the package and read the directions. I knew you had to use a lubricant, but the directions specifically said not a petroleum-based lubricant. all I had in the nursery was vaseline, which is petroleum-based. uhhhh....
fast forward to me digging the box of lube that my step-sister had gotten me as a gag gift for my bridal shower 3 years ago out of my bedside table. the as yet unopened box of lube.
until tonight. daxon just got his temperature taken (99.0) with a rectal thermometer lubricated with durex black cherry flavored lube. real classy, mom.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
one week
i cannot believe it's been over a week since daxon came into our lives. looking at pictures, i already feel like he's changed so much. we are getting to know each other, and i may not always be loving it, but i sure as heck can't stay mad at that sweet little face.
here are a few things we know so far:
-daxon hates being undressed. whether it's for a clothing change, a diaper change, or a bath, he is not happy about it. as soon as you get him all put together again, he's totally fine.
-daxon does not like the bath. he screamed blood murder the entire time we bathed him.
-when he's awake, he's very alert. not that he can see a great deal, but he looks around constantly, taking everything in. a friend of mine once told me that alert newborns tend to grow up to be very smart.
-he likes motion. we discovered this the day we brought him home. he was in a full scream fit until i sat down in the wheelchair with him on my lap in his car seat. as soon as the wheelchair started to move...silence. he likes the swing, and the car, too.
-he likes white noise. at our first appointment with his pediatrician, we were very nervous, cuz we had no idea how he would do. he was a champ, even though he had to be stripped down to his skivvies for the entire appointment. well the office has loud white noise piping through its sound system, like muzak for babies. we need to get him a white noise machine for his room.
-he has mixed feelings about pacifiers, which is fine, cuz so does mommy.
-we seem to be very lucky in the sleep department (knock on wood). he gets his last feeding at 8pm, which means he usually goes down for bed between 8:30-9, depending on how long he nurses. i try to keep him up and eating as long as possible so he gets a really full belly. the past 4 nights, he's then slept until 1or 2am, then gets up every 2-3 hours after that. i'm hoping this continues, and that the additional feedings continue to stretch out. our first few nights at home, we were up every 1.5-2 hours, so this is an enormous improvement.
-he breastfeeds like an old pro. his latch was perfect the very first time in the hospital, and continues to be spot on 95% of the time. i have to readjust him a few times, but for the most part, he does awesome. i am so grateful for this.
-i am a little worried that he may have reflux. after he eats, he often gags, though he rarely burps or spits up. he gets the hiccups a lot, and occasionally when he's really wailing, he arches his back and today it even seemed like he was kind of grabbing at his throat, but i may be imagining this. i am going to keep an eye on it and possibly call the pediatrician.
-i'm not going to lie and say i feel great. i am still very sore, and am actually kind of concerned that one of my sutures has opened. i think i am still bleeding more than i should be. i am trying to take it easy, but that is really hard for me - i have never been good at relinquishing responsibility. my mom was with me last week after matt went back to work, and even though she offered to clean and cook, i still ended up doing a lot of things myself, and i shouldn't have. today, i have done much better and let matt do pretty much everything. it is hard, and i feel like a lazy poop and keep apologizing and thanking matt, but i know i need to do it in order to be able to give daxon the care that he needs.
-i have had a few total meltdowns and felt like i couldn't hack it as a mom, but for the most part, i feel like i'm doing pretty well. being a mama is an amazing thing. i am learning so much from daxon everyday. already he is making me a better person. he's a happy little boy (unless he's naked), and i could just sit and stare at him for hours. i never knew my heart could be so full.
Monday, September 24, 2012
dr. karp versus mom
i just finished reading the happiest baby on the block and i have to say, it really resonated with me. dr. karp's ideas about calming a fussy baby make a shit-ton of sense, if you ask me. his theory, after years of being a pediatrician and doing research on colicky infants, is that babies are simply born too early. what they really need is another 3 months in the womb, but since women cannot be physically split in half and sewn back together in order to birth a 15-pound child, we evict them at 40 weeks. when they are still woefully underdeveloped, emotionally.
dr. karp says that in order to calm a crying infant, you need to recreate the womb for him. this is where baby felt safest, and in order to calm down, he needs to feel that sense of security again. dr. karp has come up with the 5 s's of quieting a screaming baby - swaddle, stomach/side position, shush, swing, and suck. by doing these 5 things for baby, it helps to recreate that feeling of being securely wrapped in your uterus, and suddenly he's able to calm down again and - hopefully - fall asleep. but i'm not here to talk about the 5 s's. maybe another post.
i'm here to talk about dr. karp's insistence that constantly holding/carrying/picking up your infant when he cries will not spoil him. i don't know about you, but i was always told that you shouldn't pick a child up every time he cries because he'll get spoiled and start to expect it. it's what my mom always said. she also always said, "if you don't raise them, they'll raise you." her theory was that you have to let them figure out how to fend for and entertain themselves. it was the way my parents (i'm assuming) raised me, and i turned out ok, so i always figured it's gotta be right, right? why not? it makes sense. the sooner baby learns to entertain himself, the better. as my friends started having babies, i began parroting that advice to them (which, as i now understand, must have been so obnoxious). after reading dr. karp, i'm not so sure anymore.
dr. karp says that in a baby's first 3-4 months, all he understands is that he's uncomfortable/cold/hungry/scared/whatever, and suddenly there's this person, making it better. he isn't capable of putting two and two together to figure out that a) he's actually crying when he's feeling any of the above and b) that his crying brings us to him. all he knows is that he has a need and it's being met. and that makes him feel safe. that makes a lot of sense to me. by the time baby is 4-5 months old, he is now capable of self-soothing, and will not need you to come and rescue him from himself. and this is when you can let him sit and cry in his crib for a few minutes. he'll figure out how to get his fingers in his mouth and calm himself down.
of course, matt hasn't read the book yet, but in describing it to him, he thinks it sounds like a good idea. i think i'm going to get the happiest baby on the block dvd so that we can both get a good visual on what the 5 s's look like. it's a novel approach in my family, but one that i think i'd like to take. i want to make sure our baby feels safe and secure. but i don't want to spoil him. after reading dr. karp's theories, i feel this can be achieved.
did you read happiest baby on the block? have you tested any of his theories on your infant?
Monday, June 25, 2012
hero worship
ok, this might sound weird to some, but i love me some michelle obama. all politics and party lines aside, just take the woman for who she is. a fiercely independent, strong, woman. an excellent parent. a supportive wife. and her main focus as first lady? childhood hunger and obesity. not to mention, a fashion icon.
i was watching a marathon of restaurant impossible this weekend, and caught the one where michelle obama brings in robert irvine to help a struggling food pantry/children's education center/community center in washington, dc. she really cares about the health and well-being of those children and it was so adorable to watch her interact with them and talk to them about making healthy choices in food.
i love that she started the big white house vegetable garden and promotes clean eating for her family and the white house staff. her let's move initiative not only promotes healthy eating but also exercise. she realizes that not everyone lives in a neighborhood where gardening space is available, so she teaches you how to build container gardens and even windowsill gardens! that she's championed this issue for her reign as first lady is so great. laura bush chose education, but how do you really promote that? michelle obama chose something real and tangible.
i love seeing photos of her and president obama and of them with their girls. they just look like a genuinely happy family headed by a couple who are deeply in love and committed to each other.
i mean, that picture of the 2 of them on the elevator? it's like there's no one else in the world but the 2 of them. swoon.
i've never been one to have a "hero" per se, but i do love michelle obama and i think she is a fantastic role model. as i face the idea that i'm going to be a mother soon, i think about women who could be role models for our daughter. the names and faces out there these days that young girls know aren't exactly the ideal heroes. i'm hoping to be able to show our daughter what a truly brilliant woman looks like. and i think michelle obama is a great place to start.
who do you think is a good female role model for young girls today?
i was watching a marathon of restaurant impossible this weekend, and caught the one where michelle obama brings in robert irvine to help a struggling food pantry/children's education center/community center in washington, dc. she really cares about the health and well-being of those children and it was so adorable to watch her interact with them and talk to them about making healthy choices in food.
i love that she started the big white house vegetable garden and promotes clean eating for her family and the white house staff. her let's move initiative not only promotes healthy eating but also exercise. she realizes that not everyone lives in a neighborhood where gardening space is available, so she teaches you how to build container gardens and even windowsill gardens! that she's championed this issue for her reign as first lady is so great. laura bush chose education, but how do you really promote that? michelle obama chose something real and tangible.
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| source: via michelle obama on pinterest |
i love seeing photos of her and president obama and of them with their girls. they just look like a genuinely happy family headed by a couple who are deeply in love and committed to each other.
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| source: via michelle obama on pinterest |
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| source: via michelle obama on pinterest |
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| source: from instyle via rachel on pinterest |
i mean, that picture of the 2 of them on the elevator? it's like there's no one else in the world but the 2 of them. swoon.
i've never been one to have a "hero" per se, but i do love michelle obama and i think she is a fantastic role model. as i face the idea that i'm going to be a mother soon, i think about women who could be role models for our daughter. the names and faces out there these days that young girls know aren't exactly the ideal heroes. i'm hoping to be able to show our daughter what a truly brilliant woman looks like. and i think michelle obama is a great place to start.
who do you think is a good female role model for young girls today?
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
time and the mommy wars
oy vey. you've all heard about this, right? the time magazine cover that's taken the world by storm. i'm not a mother yet, but i am deeply offended by the article. not by the 3-year-old standing on a chair at his mother's breast. i'm offended by the implication that women who don't adhere to the attachment parenting style of parenting aren't "mom enough." i'm saddened that this perpetuates and creates more competition among women to be better moms.
women and mothers have enough pressure on them internally to be good moms. and while i think that mommy blogs can be wonderful things, they can also be harmful. it's not hard to read what other women are doing and compare yourself to them. women blog about their babies' milestones and i'm sure it's difficult to read that if your child is the same age and hasn't hit that milestone yet. or seeing all the creative things that a mom is doing with her kids, while you feel like you're barely able to get through a day unscathed.
even as a newly-pregnant woman, i find myself comparing myself to other women. i have a friend who completely stopped drinking coffee and any kind of caffeinated drinks. for her entire pregnancy. she always said she knew that one or two cups every now and then is ok, but she "didn't want to take a chance." i, on the other hand, like my coffee. when matt and i started ttc, i switched to decaf, but i still drank it. since we got our bfp, i've switched to water during the week, but on the weekends, i fully intend to enjoy my cup of decaf coffee.. i'm also going to continue to enjoy iced tea if i feel the urge. but there is some little voice inside my head that says "you should do what she did and stop altogether."
the time magazine article talks about attachment parenting as the style of parenting to strive for. and at it's core, it does sound pretty ideal. mrs. jacks on hellobee wrote a great post about attachment parenting. to me, it sounds like a pretty natural, straight-forward way to parent. provide support, sensitivity, compassion, and love. it's kind of like, uh, duh. i think the problem with attachment parenting is that people take it too far, like mrs. jacks says. it becomes less about nurturing and more about sheltering.
matt and i talk a lot about the kind of parents we hope to be. we want to be loving but firm. supportive but strict. we will not be afraid to say no or to discipline our children. and we will draw the line when needed to protect our marriage (and our sanities!), like not letting our children share our bed. like setting her in a bouncy seat so that we have our hands free.
then i read this. it was like an epiphany. we should be fighting a mommy war. but we should be fighting it for each other, not with each other. the feminist movement did amazing work for women to get us equal rights and equality in the workplace. but somewhere along the line, it went a little rogue. it worked so hard to ensure women equal places in the workforce that it lost sight of the fact that, like or not, women have different needs than men, biologically and hormonally speaking. and those needs have gotten ignored.
in the us, you are lucky if you get any paid maternity leave. at my company you "get" 6 weeks. and by "get" i mean that you can take 6 weeks of short-term disability, paid at 65% of your salary. if you want to take anything other than, you have to use your vacation, sick, or personal time. i work at a large enough company that we participate in fmla, so that my job is protected for 12 weeks. 12 weeks. 3 months. just long enough to get a handle on breastfeeding and get a routine down. if i want to take longer than that, i risk losing my job. my plan is to exhaust all but 40 hours of my sick and vacation time (they at least let you keep 40 hours so that you have time if you need to take a sick day), supplement with the 6 weeks of disability, and then any other time i'll take unpaid, as long as matt and i can financially pull that off. i'd love to take my full 12 weeks but i'm just not sure that that is in the cards for us.
hellobee is doing a series right now on maternity leave around the world, and reading the series just infuriates me. most of the world is lightyears ahead of the us in support for pregnancy and new parents. i mean, mexico has better maternity support than the us. mexico! some countries not only offer paid maternity leave, but paid (or at least subsidized) daycare. it's amazing. why has the us - one of the richest countries in the world - not caught on? the gop and the conservative right are always going on and on about family values. where is the fight for the family value of mom being able to be home and raise her infant?
what are your thoughts on attachment parenting? and would you be willing to pay higher taxes for things like government-paid maternity leave and subsidized daycare?
women and mothers have enough pressure on them internally to be good moms. and while i think that mommy blogs can be wonderful things, they can also be harmful. it's not hard to read what other women are doing and compare yourself to them. women blog about their babies' milestones and i'm sure it's difficult to read that if your child is the same age and hasn't hit that milestone yet. or seeing all the creative things that a mom is doing with her kids, while you feel like you're barely able to get through a day unscathed.
even as a newly-pregnant woman, i find myself comparing myself to other women. i have a friend who completely stopped drinking coffee and any kind of caffeinated drinks. for her entire pregnancy. she always said she knew that one or two cups every now and then is ok, but she "didn't want to take a chance." i, on the other hand, like my coffee. when matt and i started ttc, i switched to decaf, but i still drank it. since we got our bfp, i've switched to water during the week, but on the weekends, i fully intend to enjoy my cup of decaf coffee.. i'm also going to continue to enjoy iced tea if i feel the urge. but there is some little voice inside my head that says "you should do what she did and stop altogether."
the time magazine article talks about attachment parenting as the style of parenting to strive for. and at it's core, it does sound pretty ideal. mrs. jacks on hellobee wrote a great post about attachment parenting. to me, it sounds like a pretty natural, straight-forward way to parent. provide support, sensitivity, compassion, and love. it's kind of like, uh, duh. i think the problem with attachment parenting is that people take it too far, like mrs. jacks says. it becomes less about nurturing and more about sheltering.
matt and i talk a lot about the kind of parents we hope to be. we want to be loving but firm. supportive but strict. we will not be afraid to say no or to discipline our children. and we will draw the line when needed to protect our marriage (and our sanities!), like not letting our children share our bed. like setting her in a bouncy seat so that we have our hands free.
then i read this. it was like an epiphany. we should be fighting a mommy war. but we should be fighting it for each other, not with each other. the feminist movement did amazing work for women to get us equal rights and equality in the workplace. but somewhere along the line, it went a little rogue. it worked so hard to ensure women equal places in the workforce that it lost sight of the fact that, like or not, women have different needs than men, biologically and hormonally speaking. and those needs have gotten ignored.
in the us, you are lucky if you get any paid maternity leave. at my company you "get" 6 weeks. and by "get" i mean that you can take 6 weeks of short-term disability, paid at 65% of your salary. if you want to take anything other than, you have to use your vacation, sick, or personal time. i work at a large enough company that we participate in fmla, so that my job is protected for 12 weeks. 12 weeks. 3 months. just long enough to get a handle on breastfeeding and get a routine down. if i want to take longer than that, i risk losing my job. my plan is to exhaust all but 40 hours of my sick and vacation time (they at least let you keep 40 hours so that you have time if you need to take a sick day), supplement with the 6 weeks of disability, and then any other time i'll take unpaid, as long as matt and i can financially pull that off. i'd love to take my full 12 weeks but i'm just not sure that that is in the cards for us.
hellobee is doing a series right now on maternity leave around the world, and reading the series just infuriates me. most of the world is lightyears ahead of the us in support for pregnancy and new parents. i mean, mexico has better maternity support than the us. mexico! some countries not only offer paid maternity leave, but paid (or at least subsidized) daycare. it's amazing. why has the us - one of the richest countries in the world - not caught on? the gop and the conservative right are always going on and on about family values. where is the fight for the family value of mom being able to be home and raise her infant?
what are your thoughts on attachment parenting? and would you be willing to pay higher taxes for things like government-paid maternity leave and subsidized daycare?
Sunday, February 12, 2012
parenting
ok, so by now you've probably heard about that article in the wall street journal about why french parents are superior. i'd heard about it last week, i think, but didn't actually read it until i read this post on hellobee yesterday. i thought the hellobee post was really interesting, and since people in the comments related it to the article, i thought i'd check out the article.
i gotta admit, i'm fascinated. i'm a social worker. you know this by now. but my minor in college, and something i've always been interested in, was sociology. sociology is, by definition, the scientific study of society. i think the study of social norms and values is so amazing. so this article really piqued my interest.
anyway, as i read this post, i was reminded of a post i read a month ago on hellobee about benign neglect. at the time, i remember thinking to myself, "i should blog about this, it's really interesting." then i forgot. so i'm back, thinking about it, so here i am.
i believe in benign neglect and executive function. when i was growing up, my parents would leave me and my sister to our own devices. sometimes for hours at a time. sure, they were always around, but i can specifically remember chunks of time when callie and i were in our rooms playing or reading. there are pictures of us on our beds, playing with our care bears and singing along to our tape recorders. we used to steal my mom's voice recorder and record stupid skits and messages for her. we would make up dances. i remember doing the same thing with our friends, too. we definitely had nintendo and played it quite a bit, but for the most part, we were outside playing games or inside being creative.
and, if i do say so myself, i think we turned out pretty damn good. we are successful adults with steady, important jobs and in happy, stable marriages. we did well in school and get along well with others. we have lots of friends and are successfully social beings. but we can also be perfectly content to sit at home and read or watch movies by ourselves.
as i read the article about french parents, all i could think was, "i hope i can raise our children like that." i hope that our kids show restraint and don't demand immediate gratification. i hope to teach our children that, while they are important, they are not the only thing in our lives that deserve/demand attention. so does our marriage. so do our jobs, our friends, our families...plenty of other things. i hope to be that french mother that tells her interrupting child "just wait, mommy will be with you in 2 minutes, she's busy talking to her friend right now." and i hope our child waits patiently.
i like the idea of buying snacks for children, but making them wait to eat until it's snack time. children who have free reign to the fridge end up being children who are obese. maybe that's a gross generalization, but...honestly. if i exhibited no self-control and ate whatever i felt like whenever i felt like it, i'd be much heavier than i am. no matter how much i exercised. children should be taught self-control and delayed gratification. that hershey kiss will not taste any better right now than it will in 30 minutes when it's snack time.
so many of our friends' children do not know how to do this. they interrupt and nag and pull on sweaters and poke and hit until they get what they want. and their parents let them. i think that does the children a disservice. this leads them to believe that their needs are more important than anyone else's, and they grow up expecting that from life. that's not a fair lesson to teach our children, because, as we all know, life doesn't work that way.
matt and i have already discussed the fact that we are not going to buy cars with dvd players in them. my sister and i went on 10-hour road trips every year of our lives, and we didn't have dvd players. we sang songs, we played "i spy," and we read. we entertained ourselves. and i plan to encourage my children to do the same.
i don't know how my parents taught us this. maybe they just left us alone and forced us to figure out our own entertainment. maybe they got us started coloring and then left us alone to keep going. i don't know. but i hope that i can figure it out. i intend to practice benign neglect. i hope to encourage executive function. and i hope to be a french parent rather than an american one.
i gotta admit, i'm fascinated. i'm a social worker. you know this by now. but my minor in college, and something i've always been interested in, was sociology. sociology is, by definition, the scientific study of society. i think the study of social norms and values is so amazing. so this article really piqued my interest.
anyway, as i read this post, i was reminded of a post i read a month ago on hellobee about benign neglect. at the time, i remember thinking to myself, "i should blog about this, it's really interesting." then i forgot. so i'm back, thinking about it, so here i am.
i believe in benign neglect and executive function. when i was growing up, my parents would leave me and my sister to our own devices. sometimes for hours at a time. sure, they were always around, but i can specifically remember chunks of time when callie and i were in our rooms playing or reading. there are pictures of us on our beds, playing with our care bears and singing along to our tape recorders. we used to steal my mom's voice recorder and record stupid skits and messages for her. we would make up dances. i remember doing the same thing with our friends, too. we definitely had nintendo and played it quite a bit, but for the most part, we were outside playing games or inside being creative.
and, if i do say so myself, i think we turned out pretty damn good. we are successful adults with steady, important jobs and in happy, stable marriages. we did well in school and get along well with others. we have lots of friends and are successfully social beings. but we can also be perfectly content to sit at home and read or watch movies by ourselves.
as i read the article about french parents, all i could think was, "i hope i can raise our children like that." i hope that our kids show restraint and don't demand immediate gratification. i hope to teach our children that, while they are important, they are not the only thing in our lives that deserve/demand attention. so does our marriage. so do our jobs, our friends, our families...plenty of other things. i hope to be that french mother that tells her interrupting child "just wait, mommy will be with you in 2 minutes, she's busy talking to her friend right now." and i hope our child waits patiently.
i like the idea of buying snacks for children, but making them wait to eat until it's snack time. children who have free reign to the fridge end up being children who are obese. maybe that's a gross generalization, but...honestly. if i exhibited no self-control and ate whatever i felt like whenever i felt like it, i'd be much heavier than i am. no matter how much i exercised. children should be taught self-control and delayed gratification. that hershey kiss will not taste any better right now than it will in 30 minutes when it's snack time.
so many of our friends' children do not know how to do this. they interrupt and nag and pull on sweaters and poke and hit until they get what they want. and their parents let them. i think that does the children a disservice. this leads them to believe that their needs are more important than anyone else's, and they grow up expecting that from life. that's not a fair lesson to teach our children, because, as we all know, life doesn't work that way.
matt and i have already discussed the fact that we are not going to buy cars with dvd players in them. my sister and i went on 10-hour road trips every year of our lives, and we didn't have dvd players. we sang songs, we played "i spy," and we read. we entertained ourselves. and i plan to encourage my children to do the same.
i don't know how my parents taught us this. maybe they just left us alone and forced us to figure out our own entertainment. maybe they got us started coloring and then left us alone to keep going. i don't know. but i hope that i can figure it out. i intend to practice benign neglect. i hope to encourage executive function. and i hope to be a french parent rather than an american one.
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